“Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” was a global hit at the box office and won four Oscars, including one for Best Foreign Language Film. Now, after years of waiting, a sequel is finally in the works.

What took so long?

Producer Harvey Weinstein has announced that filmmaker and martial-arts choreographer Yuen Wo-ping, who help stage the fights in the first film, will direct “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon II — The Green Destiny.” ( In the first movie, the Green Destiny was a powerful sword.) Donnie Yen will star in the film as Silent Wolf and Michelle Yeoh will reprise her role as Yu Shu Lien. Ang Lee directed the original 2000 movie “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” which took in $128,078,872 at the domestic box office according to Box Office Mojo.

The sequel will be based on “Iron Knight, Silver Vase” by author Wang Du Lu, the last book in the Crane Iron Pentalogy series which spawned the original “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” that starred Chow Yun-Fat, Zhang Ziyi, and Yeoh. The screenplay for the new film will be adapted by John Fusco.

“I loved Ang Lee’s film,” Weinstein said in a statement quoted on our Scene Asia blog. “I thought it was a master class in directing, but I know we are in fantastic hands with Yuen Wo-ping directing the second installment.”

The original film defied Hollywood conventional wisdom–it featured actors who were stars in Asia but not in the U.S., and dialogue in Mandarin. The action in the film was also something that was fresh to many U.S. filmgoers, mixing stylized martial artistry with moments of visual poetry. It was always rather mysterious that Hollywood didn’t try to replicate the formula. Now The Weinstein Company is taking a shot.

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